Renewed Hope Initiative Moves To Lagos

Nigeria First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Friday, met with religious leaders and traditional rulers in Lagos State during the first day of her three-day official visit to the nation’s commercial city.

The interactive meeting, held at the Lagos State Governor’s residence in Marina, afforded the First Lady to interact with opinion leaders at the grassroots on the impacts of her Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) in Lagos and other states of the federation.

The event was also attended by All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and National Assembly lawmakers in the State, Lagos cabinet officials and members of Governance Advisory Council (GAC).

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu led members of the State’s entourage to welcome the wife of the President to the State House. Senator Tinubu was accompanied by the wife of the Vice President, Hajia Nana Shettima and wife of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mrs. Salamatu Gbajabiamila.

The traditional rulers were led by chairman of Lagos State Council of Obas and Chiefs, Oba of Lagos, Alayeluwa Rilwanu Akiolu, who was represented by his vice and Ayangburen of Ikorodu, Oba Kabiru Shotobi.

The forum served as a feedback platform for the First Lady to gauge the impacts of the RHI flagship programmes at the grassroots and intimate the gathering about ongoing interventions her Office had been doing in Lagos.

Sanwo-Olu, in his opening remarks, said the traditional and religious leaders were critical stakeholders in grassroots governance, noting that the opinion leaders were the closest contacts to the citizens.

The Governor said Sen. Tinubu had brought hope to the vulnerable and the elderly through the Renewed Hope Initiative, stressing that the First Lady conceived the project with the goal to lift citizens, regardless of their political, economic and ethnic backgrounds.

Sanwo-Olu said: “Over the last two years, the First Lady has birthed new initiatives and ideas to drive Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu across communities in the country, leveraging the influence of her office to bring the desired results. The Renewed Hope Initiative is next to none in the volume of interventions and impacts. Through RHI, Sen. Tinubu has activated a lot of programmes to meet the needs of the vulnerable people at the grassroots.

“The impacts are being felt across the geopolitical regions of our country. These positive impacts have energised a new era of grassroots engagement and empowerment; many lives have been touched across the nooks and crannies of the country. All of these have been done without any financial contribution from the government’s purse.

“The First Lady has driven this initiative through her influence, contact, passion and commitment to supporting our communities. She has done this without any political coloration or affiliation. Opposition states are feeling the impacts of the Renewed Hope Initiative the same way APC states have benefited. This shows that the motive behind RHI was not political, but a compassionate action taken to make life better for citizens who need support.”

Sen. Tinubu gave an elaborate explanation about a series of programmes and interventions being implemented by her Office in Lagos, noting that the First Lady Office, through RHI, had distributed 100,000 education materials to pupils across Lagos schools, including N1 million scholarship and laptops.

Lagos, the First Lady pointed out, also got 140 scholarships through the Federal Ministry of Education Bursaries programme of 2024, adding that the State had benefited from RHI school renovation projects.

Sen. Tinubu said her Office had strengthened various groups of women to advance smart agriculture, noting that RHI had empowered 20 women in Lagos with N500k and training to participate in food sovereignty programmes to enhance agricultural output.

She said: “RHI Economic Empowerment programme enabled us to support 1,000 women in petty trade per state to recapitalise their existing businesses. This N50,000 extra grant might be little to people who have some level of comfort but means a lot to an average woman frying bean cakes at the street corner. From August 2024 that we launched the programme, thousands of women have benefited from this grant programme in Lagos.

“We are supporting this grant programme with distribution of equipment and tools to women whose businesses require deep freezers, industrial grinding machines, and industrial ovens. This project was launched in February 2025 and we have been taking the initiative to two regions to improve the lives of the beneficiaries. In Lagos, we are here to also provide the materials to support our women.”

Senator Tinubu also talked about the health care activities being championed by her Office, noting that she had rolled out a mass vaccination programme to immunise children against cervical cancer. As a burdened State, the First Lady said Lagos had been a major beneficiary area for the project.

She said her Office had also strengthened advocacy to stop the spread of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Senator Tinubu added that Lagos would be getting a 10,000 year supply of sanitary pads in the Flow With Confidence Initiative to encourage and support schoolgirls in rural communities who missed school due to lack of sanitary materials to manage their monthly period.

Senator Tinubu disclosed that RHI had supported 1,709 widows and orphans of fallen ex-servicemen with a total of N422.8 million since November 2023, adding: “We will be empowering persons living disabilities on the World Disability Day in December. We will support 250 persons per state with N200,000 each so that they can start businesses and be self-reliant.”

The First Lady thanked the religious leaders and traditional rulers for helping to bring the Renewed Hope Initiative programmes to the grassroots, urging them to communicate the feedback to members of their respective communities.

Oba Shotobi, who spoke on behalf of the attendees, applauded the First Lady’s interventions, pledging more support and commitment to the Renewed Hope Initiative.

The traditional ruler, however, urged the wife of the President to use her influence to create a statutory framework that would enable the country’s political leadership to harness the power of traditional institutions for national development.

Ayangburen said Lagos had not fully benefited from local government administration, given its growing population and economic position. He specially requested that Sen. Tinubu champion the call for the enlistment of the State’s 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) into the constitution to enable them function as statutory entities.

This, the traditional ruler said, would address the lopsidedness and injustice done to Lagos in local government creation.

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